


from an empty seat (a flash of light)

by bringyouhometoo



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (felt only fair to throw that tag in for the very much earned E rating in later chapters), Ambiguity, Angst, Angst and Porn, CW: themes of mental illnesss, Dreams, F/M, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s07e05 The Angels Take Manhattan, but also some fluff?, discussions around delusions/hallucinations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-09 01:52:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17992598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bringyouhometoo/pseuds/bringyouhometoo
Summary: Amy wonders, sometimes, if she’s going mad.(It’s not a new thought, but that doesn’t make it any more comforting.)In Manhattan, dreams of being back on the TARDIS start slipping into Amy's safe and familiar routines. But is she dreaming, or is she waking up?





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> It's 2019. I don't even know anymore. 
> 
> A few things to start with: the E rating is very much appropriate for later chapters! If that's not your cup of tea, you could probably skip/skim the relevant sections, but it's totally up to you. Also, yes, Amy starts this fic in Manhattan post- _The Angels Take Manhattan_ , and that means she also starts this fic settled and still together with Rory. As the summary suggests, though, things might not quite be what they seem...
> 
> Dedicated with love to [Christine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsinorerose/pseuds/elsinorerose), who I feel is somehow to blame despite not prompting me in any way, shape, or form to write this. Title from "Space Song" by Beach House.

**Chapter One**

Amy wonders, sometimes, if she’s going mad.

(It’s not a new thought, but that doesn’t make it any more comforting.)

She turns a corner, and sees a shade of faded blue replicated so perfectly on some old shop door that she sways on the spot; she hears a familiar sound mixed in with the cars and the bicycle bells and the rain against the windows, and has to hold on to the kitchen counter with a white-knuckled grip until it passes; she looks into a mirror and doesn’t recognise the face staring back at her.

These moments come in phases, waxing and waning with her mood (or Rory’s), and sometimes the sheer force of them feels like a tide all on its own, carrying her out further and further from the steadfastness of her routine, making her feel lost and unsteady until it passes and she can feel the Upper West Side beneath her feet again.

But sometimes –

_Sometimes, when the air is still and the sky is clear, sometimes when the moonlight hits the Hudson just so –_

Sometimes, it’s the moments in-between that feel unsteady. That don’t feel real.

“I can’t explain it,” she says, hands curled protectively around her cup of coffee. “So don’t ask me to, okay?”

Rory just nods, tired. He’s working long days and they’ve barely seen each other, orbiting around their apartment day after day, barely stopping to eat breakfast together in the mornings or go to bed at the same time every night.

Amy protects those times, though; forces herself up and awake when she hears Rory go for his shower so she can have coffee and scrambled eggs ready for him. Forces herself to lie down at the same time every evening, staring up at the narrow sliver of sky she can see through the bedroom window until she hears his breathing become slow and even, and she can tiptoe out to the fire escape or the kitchen table.

It makes for short nights and tired mornings, this routine; but she’s seen the alternative, has seen how quickly familiarity can become cold and formal between them, how quickly things can fall apart if she lets up. So she doesn’t let up. She gets up in the mornings, she goes to bed at night. They have coffee.

And they talk, in snatches of conversation that barely leave space for disagreements; already, she regrets mentioning that feeling, because it’s too much to distill into a morning chat, this sense that the ground is unreliable under her feet _,_ that she can’t quite trust her senses –

“You’ve always had phases,” he says, patting her shoulder reassuringly as he stands up to put his cup and plate into the sink. “It’ll pass, yeah? Just don’t let it get to you.”

Amy nods. Leans her head against his arm when he stills for a moment, his thumb stroking over the collar of her robe. Lets her hair fall across her face, until he moves away to get his coat, and the air in the kitchen stops feeling like a weight against her chest.

***

“They’re getting worse,” she says, one Sunday afternoon when they’re taking a walk through the park, late-March sunshine making the air feel green and new.

“What?”

“My…“ Amy hesitates, and settles on, “Dreams.”

There’s an almost imperceptible pause. “Dreams?” Rory asks finally, and Amy can feel her insides turning cold already.

“You know,” she says quickly, waving a hand in the air in a slightly absurd motion. “Stupid things that make me think…stuff isn’t real, or something.”

“Or something,” Rory echoes. “Right.”

“It’s nothing, probably,” Amy says, already regretting bringing this up, already feeling the afternoon becoming strained and tense between them. ”Stupid.”

“Amy, if you’re having hallucinations, we can -“

“They’re not _hallucinations,_ ” Amy hears herself say with a forced laugh in her voice. “Daydreams, I guess, but it’s nothing like that.”

“It’s okay if it is,” Rory says, concern mapped across his face, and Amy hates herself for making this a joke, _hates_ it, but she just laughs at him.

“Don’t be stupid.”

Annoyance flashes across Rory’s features, washing away the concern, and he starts walking again, fast enough that Amy has to make an effort to keep pace with him.

She doesn’t bring it up again, and by the time he sits down opposite her on Monday morning it’s forgotten, and they slip back into their easy, unhurried routine.

***

But they do get worse. 

They do, in fact, become what Amy suspects other people would call _hallucinations_ and she stubbornly files under _wishful thinking;_ fleeting images of two figures crossing the street in front of her, hand in swinging hand - a girl pushing past Amy on a crowded sidewalk, red hair streaming behind her as she runs towards the sound of police sirens – an English accent sticking out above the other voices on the subway, rapid-fire explanations of something that Amy strains to hear but that slips further and further out of earshot the harder she tries –

And then, quite suddenly, worse again.

***

Amy wakes up in her bedroom.

She lies very still for a few minutes, gathering her thoughts; but the sensation doesn’t pass, she doesn’t blink and suddenly see their narrow bedroom on the 3rd floor again, doesn’t suddenly turn and bump into Rory’s shoulder; the image of her bedroom holds, and solidifies around her instead.

Alright, so she’s dreaming.

She’s having a dream, and she’ll wake up soon, but for now she can lie here and savour the moment, the familiar sheets against her skin, the familiar clothes spilling out of the wardrobe across the room. The sounds are back, too, the engine hum making her feel warm and safe, the quiet that’s not quite silence enveloping her in contentment.

Amy slides out of bed, seeing for the first time that she’s back in her favourite pyjamas, violets patterned over the softest flannel. Her feet find her slippers where she left them on the floor.

This is a really good dream.

Feeling strangely bold, she crosses the room, gives herself a quick once-over in the mirror – still the same face, she isn’t dreaming about the past, then, not exactly – she hasn’t made herself younger to fit the surroundings – and opens the bedroom door.

The TARDIS corridors unfold in front of her, and Amy hears herself laugh, the sound too loud in the quiet.

Third left, second right, over the bridge, and left again; Amy walks quickly, her fingers dancing along the walls, her slippers treading the familiar path, and all the while anticipation is bubbling in her stomach, and then she rounds a corner and –

Amy squeezes her eyes shut, but it’s too late. The console room has already seared itself into her mind, every detail crystal-clear; the memories are apparently all still there, all still readily accessible for whatever form of torture her subconscious has settled on for tonight.

“Morning, Pond!”

Oh, this isn’t fair.

She can hear him, bounding up the steps towards in his stupid big boots, can feel the warmth of his breath before she feels his hands on her arms pulling her towards him, and she eyes are still squeezed shut and her hands are curled into fists at her side but it doesn’t matter, he’s still smacking a kiss to the top of her hair and then releasing her just slightly, his hands still holding on to her at arms-length. Amy doesn’t need to open her eyes to see his face, routine affection giving way to concern as he takes in her frown, her silence, her rigid posture.

“Amelia.”

“Go away,” she says, very quietly. “Leave me alone, _please._ ”

“Amy, can you open your eyes?”

Amy bites her lip. “No _._ ”

“What’s wrong, what’s happened?”

She doesn’t say anything. Maybe, if she doesn’t say anything, this will stop, it’ll all be over and she can wake up –

Suddenly remembering some long-ago advice about nightmares, Amy forces herself to breathe in and out, and then wrenches her eyes open.

She doesn’t wake up.

Instead, she’s looking directly into the Doctor’s face, and she starts laughing helplessly; he laughs too, eyes scanning hers with rapid, concerned intensity, and Amy feels tears welling up behind her eyes.

“Hello,” the Doctor says quietly, with a smile that’s doing _reassuring_ while his eyes are still three steps behind. Amy laughs harder, tears spilling down her cheeks now, and she can feel his thumbs stroking tiny soothing circles into her sleeves, grounding her in this fantasy, making it harder and harder for her to leave.

“Hi.”

“Bad dream?” he asks quietly, and Amy takes in a shuddering breath, the laughter fading away in her throat. “Something else?”

“Something else,” she just says, pulling herself out of his hold on her arms and sinking down onto the metal steps, leaning her head against the bannisters. The Doctor follows her down, his shape pressing against her legs, his head propped lightly against her knees so he can look up at her, and Amy thinks idly that her subconscious might be good but it isn’t _that_ good because he was never this touchy, this unguarded.

“I’m having a dream,” Amy says, hearing the words echo around the room; maybe this will do it, maybe this will dispel the dream.

“You’re not, I promise,” the Doctor says immediately, and Amy rolls her eyes.

“That’s exactly what a dream person would say.”

“Okay,” he nods with a faint smile. “Point taken. So what’s happened so far, in this dream, then?”

“I woke up in my bedroom,” she says, and he nods, eyes fixed on hers, waiting for her to continue. “And…then I walked in here.”

“You walked in here?” The Doctor asks, frowning a little. “Straight out of your bedroom? I can check the TARDIS, she might have been moving rooms again –“

“No,” she shakes her head, cutting him off. “No, I walked the same way I always did, and then I ended up here.”

“Ah,” he grins, then, a slight edge of mischief creeping into his voice. “Very exciting, this dream.”

She hits him on the shoulder. “Shut up.”

“Sorry.” He looks up at her again, then, and Amy finds herself caught in his stare, feels herself wanting to hide. “Go on, what makes this a dream, then?”

“You’re never this nice to me, for a start,” she says, forcing a laugh and feeling the air lighten slightly around them when he pulls an outraged face.

“I’m always nice!”

“And I’m…” Amy tenses herself what she’s going to say next. “I’m here.”

Understanding, or the beginnings of it, clouds the Doctor’s eyes. Now she’s done it, surely? Now that she’s broken the spell, she’ll be allowed to wake up?

“Were you expecting to be somewhere else?”

“At home,” Amy says automatically, seeing him draw away just slightly. “In my bedroom.”

“Leadworth?”

Amy shakes her head. “With Rory.”

He really does draw away this time, predictably. Amy’s knees feel cold.

“Do you…want to be in your bedroom?” he asks, eyes fixed somewhere behind her left ear. “With Rory?”

“That’s not the point, is it?” Amy says, annoyed, suddenly, at this dream Doctor who’s somehow still competing. “I _am_ there, so this a dream.”

Guilt washes over his face, then; was he always this easy to read? Or is she just seeing what she wants to see, because she’s the one making it up?

“Sorry, Pond.” he says, reaching out to gently prise her hands away from her chest one by one, tugging her upwards so she’s standing opposite him again. “Will you come to the med bay with me?”

“I’m not _sick._ ”

“I didn’t say you were,” he says quickly. “But you’re worrying me, and I’d like to run a few tests to rule some things out, okay?”

“I’m not going to spend my whole dream being scanned and prodded,” Amy says stubbornly, pulling her hands out of his grip and folding them across her chest. “Take me somewhere.”

The Doctor looks at her for a long moment, hands hovering awkwardly between them. “Right,” he says suddenly, spinning on the spot and dashing for the console. “One surprise trip, coming right up.”

Amy keeps her arms folded tightly around herself, and watches him with fear and anger mixing stubbornly in her stomach.

***

He takes her to see a school of star whales, throws the TARDIS doors wide open so she can let her feet dangle out into space and watch two calves play hide-and-seek in a meteor shower. Amy leans her head on the TARDIS door, feels her cheeks warm up in the starlight.

“Still think this is a dream?” he asks softly, sitting down next to her after a few minutes.

“Don’t ruin it,” she says, keeping her eyes fixed on the star whales. “Thanks for bringing me.”

“Any time, Pond.”                                                                                                                                                                   

She lets him take her hand.

The school moves past them eventually, their slow, mournful song echoing around the air bubble the Doctor’s thrown up around the TARDIS for a few minutes after they’ve disappeared from view. Amy breathes in and out, keeping her eyes fixed on the stars outside; if this is the whole dream, she thinks, then at least it was a good one.

 _If_?

Panic rises up in her throat like bile, and pinches herself, hard. The TARDIS stays resolutely solid around her.

The Doctor’s watching her carefully, his face turned towards her so she can see the shadows cast by his _ridiculous_ cheekbones –

“What do you think happened?” she asks him, turning quickly away from his gaze.

“Happened?”

“To Rory.”

“It’s your dream, isn’t it? You tell me.”         

“Nice try,” Amy snorts. “I told you, I just woke up here. You’re the…dream person, you tell me how this works.”

“Wouldn’t you know, in a dream?” he asks, his voice persuasive, almost wheedling. “Aren’t I just a figment of your imagination?”

Amy frowns, unwilling to concede the point but unable to think of why he’s wrong. “I don’t know,” she says finally. “Pretend I’ve got amnesia, or something, just tell me.”

“He died,” the Doctor says then, so bluntly that Amy knows he’s trying to shock her out of it. “It was awful, terrible luck, and you tried very hard to make me fix it, but he died. I’m sorry.”

“And I…stayed,” Amy says flatly; oh, if her psychiatrists could see her now.

“You stayed,” he says quietly. “And you mourned. _We_ mourned,” he adds, somewhat convincingly. “And you got better. It took you a long time but you’re happy.”

“How long?” Amy asks, her voice shaking.

“I’m sorry?”

“How long ago did my _husband_ die?”

His hand moves, very slightly, away from hers; and everything Amy needs to know about the _particular_ form of torture she’s dreamt up for herself here is laid bare in that tiny movement.

“Three years.”

“Three years.” Amy turns her face to look at him again, to see the guilty conscience reflected back at her. “Didn’t take me long, then, did it? Getting over it?”

“Amy…”

“Shut up,” she says, closing the gap between them too quickly for him to intercept her, and kisses him.

Their mouths meet in a clumsy rush of lips and teeth, her nose knocking against his, and his hands are fluttering like agitated birds between them until she turns her head just slightly and sucks his lip between hers, and a groan rumbles in his chest and his hands find their way to her shoulders, drawing her in.

It’s messy and fast and _real,_ it feels way too fucking real, Amy pressing forwards until the Doctor’s back hits the TARDIS doors, until his hands are ghosting down her sides and anchoring themselves on her hips, tugging her forward; she was right about this version of them, then, he’s surprised but not _that_ surprised, they’ve done this too many times for it to be anything other than _good._ Amy can feel her breaths coming out hot and ragged, can feel heat building in the pit of her stomach, can feel the faint scratch of his chin against hers, and she wants – she wants –

She can taste salt before she realises she’s crying, and all at once she’s hitting her hands against his chest, nails digging in, and she’s still kissing him but he’s slowed down, he’s pulling away and she’s crying in earnest, her eyes screwed shut and her forehead pressed against his.

“Amelia? Amy, look at me.”

Amy screws her face up tighter, forces her hands into fists so she can no longer feel his heartbeats thundering against her palms. “Why won’t you leave?”

“I’m sorry?”

She tears herself away. “Why won’t you _fucking leave?”_ She’s shouting, the space between them too small, she can feel him flinch back before she’s even opened her eyes but when she does she can just see hurt and confusion written plain in his eyes. “You’re not real, you have to do what I say, and I’m telling you to _leave_.”

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, and that just makes her angrier. “Amy, I’m truly sorry and I will find a way to fix it, I promise.”

“No,” she says then, turning away and staring back out at the stars drifting past. “You won’t, you never do.”

He doesn’t say anything at all to that, and after a few more seconds of angry silence he gets up very quietly and walks back up towards the console room.

Amy sits at the door for a long time, knees drawn up to her chest.

***

“I thought you might be cold.”

Amy doesn’t turn around. “Yeah.”

She feels him drape something around her shoulders, glances down and sees her old blue coat; without warning, she feels a smile tug at the edges of her mouth.

“Amy…”

“I just need to go back to sleep,” she says quietly, without looking up at him. “So I’m gonna sit here until I do that, and you can….go fix your sonic, or whatever, and then when I fall asleep I’ll wake up back home in my bed.”

“Sleep sounds like a good idea,” he says, and Amy rolls her eyes. “But in the meantime I thought you’re probably getting quite hungry, do you want to come and have some lunch?”

“I don’t get hungry in dreams,” Amy says flatly, and she hears him sigh.  “But thanks.”

“Can we talk, at least? Before you disappear?”

“Don’t do that,” Amy snaps, turning to look up at him; his eyes are suspiciously red, and she feels suddenly, absurdly guilty. “You’re not real, you won’t _notice_ when it stops.”

“But you will, won’t you?” he asks, and Amy presses her lips tightly together. “And I don’t think you’ve seen me in a... pretty long time.”

Amy frowns up at him. “What makes you say that?”

He smiles, just barely. “You left, didn’t you? In…reality?”

Amy stares, and finds she doesn’t have the energy to argue with him, not anymore. “Lunch sounds good,” she says, getting slowly to her feet, and he nods, looking away.

***

He makes her an omelette, hurrying around the kitchen in his usual erratic way, bouncing from the cooker to the fridge and back again; Amy sits in her spot in the corner, feet tucked under her on the bench, and watches him. The omelette takes shape quickly, and somewhere along the way he finds time to pour her some orange juice, dig out some fruit which gets chopped into her favourite spotty bowl and covered in Greek yoghurt, and grate some cheese over the rapidly-cooking eggs before they’re finished.

“There,” he smiles, slides the plate across the table with a small flourish, and sits down across from her. “ _Bon appétit_.”

Amy nods gruffly, picks up her fork and stabs at the omelette. She eats silently, quickly, realising as soon as the first bit hits her tongue how _good_ it feels to eat. The Doctor sits across from her, elbows propped up on the table and fingers steepled together under his chin; Amy looks up every now and then, to find him watching her steadily.

“What?” she asks, finally snapping, and he grins.

“Don’t get hungry in dreams, do you?” he asks; Amy purses her lips, and pushes the plate away. His face falls.  “Amy, I’m sorry –“

“Don’t be clever, then,” she says, and after a short, strained pause she picks up her spoon and starts in on the yoghurt; out of the corner of her eye she sees him smile.

“What happened?” he asks softly. “Why did you leave?”

Amy stares down at her bowl, willing herself not to blink. “Rory.”

“Normal life took over,” he says, and Amy shrugs. “Well that’s alright, I always thought it would. Suppose I’m a bit rubbish at visiting, am I? I’m sorry about that, it’s a bad habit, I….”

“You can’t,” Amy cuts him off, looking up at him and seeing him falter. “We got stuck in time, and you told me you can’t bring the TARDIS back there, ever.”

“Oh, Amelia…” he breathes, and Amy feels herself go very still. “I am so sorry.”

_No._

Of all the ways she’s let this conversation play out – all the times she’s imagined the reunion, the _retribution,_ her finally getting to apologise – she’s never imagined him like this.

Because he isn’t real, and he’s giving her an easy way out, because she’s dreaming.

_Right._

“You tried to stop me,” Amy says, forcing the words out. “Rory was gone, and… You told me what would happen, you said that would be it.”

“New York,” he says suddenly.

Amy clenches her teeth, unnerved. “What?”

“You’re talking about New York,” he says, and Amy flinches at the sudden sharpness in his voice. “The Weeping Angels. Rory died.”

“Rory got stuck back in time,” Amy corrects him. “And I went after him.”

“You didn’t,” he says, closing his eyes and leaning back slightly in his chair. “You came back into the TARDIS. That was three years ago.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates on Sunday nights!
> 
> Say hi in the comments or on tumblr where I am usually shrieking about Amy Pond at all hours of the night.
> 
> <3


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I knew it was a dream,” she says, more defensively than she’d intended. “He was pretty convincing, but… I knew it was a dream, it was just so – real.”_
> 
> _Rory nods slowly, still chewing. “You’ve been having a lot of those?”_
> 
> _“Dreams?”_
> 
> _He nods again._
> 
> _Amy shrugs, and suddenly it’s a struggle to remember why she’s telling him this in the first place if all she’s going to get is this passive kind of tolerance. “Not like this,” she says eventually, pushing herself up from the table and heading towards the bathroom._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go again!! Thank you all so much for the comments on the first chapter :') Hope you enjoy the update!
> 
>  **Please note the updated tags** \- this chapter contains some themes of mental illness and discussions around delusions/hallucinations.
> 
> This is also the chapter that very much merits an Explicit rating - it should be fairly easy to skip over if you like, though. Yeah, it's self-indulgent. No, I'm not sorry.
> 
> Dedicated (again) to [Christine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsinorerose/pseuds/elsinorerose) for beta-reading and advice!

**Chapter Two**

 

Amy wakes up in New York.

For a few seconds she just lies there, heartbeat too loud in her ears.

And then she rolls over, stares at Rory’s shoulder, watches him breathe in and out and forces herself to do the same. In and out, in and out. Eventually, her pulse slows down.

She doesn’t fall asleep again that night; she just watches the sky through the window, watches the night slowly fade into a pink-and-yellow dawn, and then she gets up and makes coffee.

“Morning,” Rory yawns, half an hour later, hair still wet from the shower. “Sleep well?”

“No, actually,” Amy says, deliberately; she waits until he’s sitting down and drinking his coffee, and then she says, “I had a dream I was on the TARDIS.”

Rory rolls his eyes. “Okay. And?”

“And, I don’t know, it was really…” Amy gestures uselessly. “Realistic.”

“Right.” Rory starts buttering his toast. “No eggs?”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, with a slight huff that might be a yawn as he gets up and goes to get the jam out of the fridge. As he sits back down, and starts eating, it occurs to Amy that that’s the extent of the conversation they’re going to have unless she pushes it.

Any other day, she wouldn’t, but –

_“I can stay with you until you fall asleep, if you like,” he’d said, and Amy had tugged wordlessly at his hands and pulled him into the bedroom._

_His breath cool against her cheek, his arm wrapped around her waist, their feet tangled together and her toes curling into the edges of his trousers._

_The quiet hum of the TARDIS around her lulling her into safety, and the quiet, whispered story he’d kept up the entire time, all the things they’d seen in the last three years, the planets they’d saved and the adventures they’d had._

She pushes it.

“The Doctor was there.”

“Obviously,” Rory says curtly, and Amy bites her lip. When he finally looks up, it’s with a resigned kind of concern in his eyes. “So? What happened?”

“I knew it was a dream,” she says, more defensively than she’d intended. “He was pretty convincing, but… I knew it was a dream, it was just so – real.”

Rory nods slowly, still chewing. “You’ve been having a lot of those?”

“Dreams?”

He nods again.

Amy shrugs, and suddenly it’s a struggle to remember why she’s telling him this in the first place if all she’s going to get is this passive kind of _tolerance._ “Not like this,” she says eventually, pushing herself up from the table and heading towards the bathroom.

***

She whiles away the day as she usually does, flitting between the first draft of a new children’s story and editing the annotated copy of an article about tenement conditions in Brooklyn.  When Rory comes home, she’s in the bath, and she hears him warm up his dinner on the stove; by the time she comes out, face flushed and skin still warm from the hot water, he’s reading the paper in bed.

“Hi,” she says, sitting down at the edge of the bed and towelling her hair. “Good day?”

“Long day,” he yawns, and Amy smiles, catching his eye. They’re okay.

They talk for a while, Rory telling her about all the patients he’s seen and Amy asking all the right questions about the procedures and operations he was able to suggest to them. By the time he puts the newspaper away and turns the bedside lamp out, they’ve settled back into a comfortable closeness.

Amy rests her head against his shoulder, staring up at the ceiling, and when he reaches for her in the dark, his movements familiar, gentle, _real,_ she turns in towards him; relief mixes in with anticipation, and Amy keeps her eyes open, focused on his face, and doesn’t see anything else.

And then he’s asleep, and she’s still keeping her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling,

Sleep doesn’t come for a long time, and by the time she finally nods off Amy is so exhausted that she slides straight into a dreamless sleep; she wakes up the next morning and sees the familiar bedroom around her, feels the familiar weight of Rory next to her.

She’s relieved. She is.

Amy forces herself to get up, wills herself down the narrow hall into the kitchen. The sun is just beginning to rise, and she starts making coffee and eggs.

***

And then – three endless days later –

Same bedroom, same bed-sheets. Same violet-patterned pyjamas, same slippers.

She follows the same route down to the console room, and the Doctor looks up, beaming. “Morning, Pond.”

Amy walks down the steps on shaking legs, reaches the console, and pulls the Doctor into a tight hug.

“Hey,” he laughs, hugging her back with an affectionate ease. “Hey, what’s happened?” Amy just shakes her head, pressing her face into his jacket and hugging him closer. His hands come to rest on her hips very gently, and after a while he asks, “Were you in New York again?”

The air catches in Amy’s throat and she pulls herself away from him, stares with something like fear bubbling in her stomach. “What?”

“Do you remember, a couple of weeks ago? When you had that nightmare about being stuck in New York?”

“Nightmare?” Amy asks, and – sure enough – the Doctor winces.

“Dream, you said it was a dream,” he says, glancing up and away, his hands still holding onto her hips and twitching in a tell-tale sign of guilt. “Anyway. I told you then, you were acting really strangely the day before, which _you_ couldn’t even remember. You told me I wasn’t real.”

“You’re _not_ real,” Amy says, and she sees his shoulders slump. “I’m dreaming.”

“You said that then, too.”

“So, what?” Amy asks, half-laughing. “You’re telling me New York is the dream, now? Haven’t we done this before?”

The Doctor shrugs, looking miserable. “We’ve spent the last weeks combing over the TARDIS for anything like the psychic pollen, any other….strange signals, anything that could have caused it. You let me run some tests on you, I can show you the results –“

“It wasn’t weeks,” Amy says. “It was three days ago.”

He looks at her closely. “You spent three days in New York? That’s funny, you told me it was only a day.”

“Stop it,” Amy says, twisting out of his arms and walking away around the console, letting her fingers dance over the buttons and levers. “Stop talking like any of this makes sense.”

“It doesn’t!” he says quickly. “That’s the thing, Amelia, none of this makes sense. You have a dream about New York, you _lose your memory_ for a day and then wake up not remembering _that,_ and you’re…” he gestures, frustrated. “Safe! On the TARDIS! I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m working on it, I _promise._ ”

“You sound so much like him,” Amy says, before she can stop herself. The Doctor pauses, frowning slightly.

“Like Rory?”

Amy snorts, and has to turn away so she doesn’t laugh outright. _Amy, if you’re having hallucinations –_ “Like the Doctor.”

“But I am the Doctor!”

“No.” Amy shakes her head. “ _My_ Doctor, the real one, not this….recurring dream….fantasy version.”

“Fantasy?” he asks, clearly aiming for light-hearted but landing somewhere just off-course. “You’re fantasizing about me now, is that it, Pond?”

Amy feels her lips twitch. “Fuck off.”

“Well,” he says then, following her around the console and tugging her towards him by both hands. “Amy, if this is your dream, you can….decide what we do today, alright? And then you’ll go back to sleep, and by the time you wake up you’ll be – right again.”

“I’ll be back in New York,” Amy says flatly, and the Doctor shrugs.

“Like I said, it’ll be right again.”

_Right again._

Is it? Is it _right_ , that this – this pale echo of an adventure, a few hours watching star whales and a few jokes shared over an omelette – that it all just disappears like smoke?

“Amy?” He’s still watching her, still waiting for an instruction.

“Take me somewhere,” she says finally, and he smiles. “I want to go somewhere different, not just the TARDIS, can we do that?”

“It’s your dream, Amy,” he says, somewhere between stubborn and resigned. “The rules are all yours.”

***

He takes her to Rio.

“The Olympic Games, Amy,” he says, watching her out of the corner of his eyes and pretending not to. “In 2016, four years in the future from that time in New York.”

“That proves nothing,” Amy snaps, stalking out of the TARDIS and trying not to smile at the hot sun, the bustling street. “We travelled all over this time period, I know where the Olympics were. And you never _did_ take me to Rio, so this is just….me trying to make up for it.”

“Very realistic, though,” the Doctor says casually, catching up to her and catching her hand with his.

“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been,” Amy says, stubborn. “This could all be totally off. Now can we drop it, please?”

He sighs, and drops it.                             

And they throw themselves into Rio.

The Doctor insists on buying her a huge sunhat, and then they stop at a market-stall selling sunglasses looking for two identical pairs; giggling like teenagers, they move on, buy frozen cocktails, listen to a busker, clap and cheer wildly every time someone drops a few coins in his guitar case.

By the time they actually make it to the Olympic village, they’ve figured out that they overshot slightly, and the opening ceremonies aren’t until tomorrow; Amy hits the Doctor square in the chest, and insists he takes her down to the beach instead.

They eat fragrant, gorgeous flatbreads filled with meat and onions, buy coconuts to drink, stick their toes into the sand. The Doctor goes for a swim, and while Amy waits for him she can feel hazy warmth spreading across her whole body; it’s deliciously easy to lie back in the hot sand, cross her hand behind her head and start to drift off….

She forces her eyes open, tears the sunglasses off and stares out into the water. For a few terrifying seconds she thinks she’s lost him already, thinks he’s left her to finish the dream by herself, but then he comes up from a dive, and as soon as she lifts her hand a little uncertainly to wave at him he starts back for the shore.

“Brought you these,” he says breathlessly, dropping down into the sand next to her and handing her a few pebbles picked up from the bottom of the sea, smooth and shiny in her hand. Amy curls her fingers around them, and asks herself again how the _hell_ she is managing to make this feel so realistic.

He watches her silently, saltwater dripping off his nose. “Amy, what's wrong?”

Amy leans forwards, letting her hair fall across her face and staring down at the pebbles, bright against her pale skin. “Stay where I can see you, please.”

She feels rather than hears him shift, and he reaches out with one wet hand to wrap his fingers around her wrist. “Of course.”

Amy leans against him, feels the dampness spread through the shirt to her back, feels the familiar shape of his chin resting on her shoulder. They watch the sea.

***

Later that night – after seafood and white wine on a terrace overlooking the sea, after stopping to watch some dancers in a small square flanked by hostels and restaurants (after Amy had pulled the Doctor out into the square, her hands clamped firmly around his and her hips swaying – after he had squeaked and protested and then, inevitably, found his rhythm, pressing his hips into hers and then spinning her around and around until she’d laughed with dizzy glee), after they buy some ice cream and wander back down to the beach, leaning against each other and watching the late-night fireworks over the sea –

They go back to the TARDIS.

Amy’s still grinning and skipping as he unlocks the door; she dances up into the console room, drapes her sun hat over one of the levers, and spins around to face him. “Thanks.”

“Any time, Pond,” he smiles. “Now, are you…ready to sleep?”

Amy hesitates, and then shakes her head. “No,” she says slowly, walking back around the console until she’s standing toe-to-toe with him, her eyes fixed on his face. “No, I’m not.”

“Right,” he nods rapidly, his eyes darting all over the place but never quite seeming to settle on her face. “I can get you some cocoa, or…”

“Or,” Amy says, reaching up with two remarkably calm hands to loosen and then untie the bow tie around his neck. She tugs on the material, feels him sway towards her. He doesn’t say anything – she doesn’t think he’s even _looking_ at her – but Amy keeps her movements deliberately unhurried, flatting her hands against his chest and feeling his hearts jump in time against her palms.

“Amelia…” he says softly, and this isn’t a warning, this isn’t his _this-far-and-no-further-Pond_ voice; it makes her falter, because she doesn’t think he’s ever said her name with this much open… _want_ before.

Or _ever_ , in real life.

“Damn, I’m good,” she says quietly, looking up at his face finally and seeing the worry line deepen over his nose. “Pretty convincing.”

“Pretty –“ he closes his eyes, and Amy hears him bite back a frustrated groan. “ _Pond._ ”

“What?”

“Do you want convincing, is that it?” he asks, his voice a little rough, his hands coming up to tug at her hips. “You want me to convince you?”

Amy sucks in a breath. “Yes,” she says, and then his lips are on hers.   

This kiss is slower than their last ( _the last dream),_ less rushed, more…focused. His mouth shaping itself against hers with burning intent, his teeth nipping at her lower lip, his hands sliding up under her shirt to press against her bare back, pulling her closer into him. Amy lets her eyes fall closed, her hands still splayed against his chest; dimly, she’s aware that he’s walking her backwards, feels her legs hit the wall and leans back against it, her lips still moving against his in short, hot movements.

Her fingers curl into his shirt, frustration with the _layers_ and the _buttons_ registering vaguely alongside everything else, and then he breaks the kiss to press his lips against the corner of her mouth, her cheekbone, her ear, and Amy lets her head fall again against the wall and rocks her hips into his.

“Amy,” he says, his lips whispering her name against her ear. “Pond.” He kisses down her neck, and Amy shudders, feeling heat run up her legs and straight up her spine. “ _Amelia,_ ” he breathes, and she snakes her hands around the back of his neck and fists her hands into his hair, pulling him back up to kiss her again. He laughs into the kiss, then. “ _Amy,_ we should – bed –“

Amy nods wordlessly, her mind deliciously empty of things like _directions_ or _orientation;_ and then his hands creep back down her side to give the slightest pull at her thighs, and she thinks, _fuck._

He lifts her easily, her legs wrapping around his hips, their mouths pressed together, and from there she’s hazily aware of stairs, corridors, walls, corners – quite a few corners – and then, finally, her back hits the solid wood of her bedroom door and she feels him fumble for the doorknob.

When the door opens behind her, Amy feels his grip slacken, and she has to grip hard to his collar to stop from stumbling completely; she hears it rip slightly, and giggles helplessly, resting her face against his chest as his hands come up to soothe over her back.

“Right,” he says, his voice low, laughing. “Sorry about that, I was… Expecting there to be fewer walls.”

Amy laughs helplessly, and then he’s just _holding_ her to him, his eyes blazing when she looks up into them; she smiles wordlessly, and walks backwards out of his arms, tugging on his shirt to walk him with her until her calves hit the bedframe and she can sink down onto the mattress.

He stops at the foot of the bed, watching her; his chest rises and falls rapidly, and Amy just stares up at him, aware of the flush spreading across her cheeks, her red, swollen lips, the fact that her shirt has ridden up almost as high as her breasts; she thinks she sees him steady himself just a little. And then he sits down on the edge of the bed, taking off one shoe and then the other at what must be a deliberately slow pace. Amy presses her thighs together, bites her lip; she can see the tenseness in his shoulders, betraying whatever _cool_ act he’s trying to pull –

He undoes the strap on her left sandal, and Amy gasps; the sandal comes off, and then the other, and then he’s facing her, his head bent low, his eyes dark and focused. Her hands are clenching and unclenching against the sheets, and when his hands come to rest either side of her ankles, fingers curling into her skin, she feels a moan ripple past her lips.

He works his way up her legs slowly, inch by inch, his fingers drawing and re-drawing tiny swirls and circles into her skin.

By the time he reaches the hem of her shorts, Amy is glassy-eyed and impatient, and he hasn’t even _kissed_ her since they got to the bedroom, and she wants – she needs –

“Doctor,” she hisses, but his eyes only briefly flick up to her face before he’s focused on the task at hand again. His fingers dip under the hem of her shorts, and then retreat; he brushes over the material instead, fingertips skimming up to the swell of her hips so quickly that Amy feels almost cheated, until he’s undoing the buttons on her shorts and tugging them down, and she all but lifts herself off the bed in her hurry to help him along.

 _That_ gets her a quiet laugh, and a quick, affectionate pat to her now-bare inner thigh – she sucks in another shuddering breath – before he’s rolled her shorts and knickers completely down and tossed them aside.

When his hands come back to rest at her ankles again, Amy thinks she might actually black out from rage.

“Don’t you _fucking_ dare,” she growls, and then he’s ducking his head down to press a hot, open-mouthed kiss to her ankle, and Amy stops talking.

Still, he takes his time. One leg, from calf to knee to shaking thigh, and then the other, and Amy is trembling so hard she’s afraid she might be about to knee him in the chin and ruin the _entire_ thing, and then he’s curling his hands around her knees, nudging them gently aside, and now, surely, _surely,_ now, he’s –

He presses his mouth to the very top of her thigh, and licks along the length of her, and Amy cries out. He does it again, all stubble and lips and tongue against her, and again, his fingers still splayed across her thighs, and Amy thinks vaguely that she might come so hard she wakes up, which – _no. Focus._

She focuses on breathing in and out. She focuses on her hands, curling into fists around the bedsheets. She focuses on the Doctor’s relaxed, almost leisurely movements; the long, languid licks against her centre that would be enough to drive her over the edge all on their own if she wasn’t sure that a lot more was just around the corner.

When he turns his attention to her clit, he takes it into his mouth in one searing movement, sucking and nipping until she’s panting to every movement. And then his hands, which have been still at her thighs for far too long, start to stroke over her burning skin, one finger finding its way to her centre and driving into her, then two and then three, and he’s still sucking and _sucking_ , and his other hand is gripping onto her hip, her waist, now he’s found her hand and their fingers wind together, and she’s about to come, it’s too much, he’s too much, she’s going to come –

Her eyes screw shut, and her hips are rolling uncontrollably up into him now, and he breaks away for a few heart-stopping seconds to press a hot, wet kiss to her knuckles; Amy feels empty, feels open, feels a keening noise work its way up her throat and past her ragged lips; and then his lips are on her again, his fingers are driving into her faster and faster, and he’s kissing her clit with bruising intensity, and Amy falls apart.

He keeps his fingers pushing in and out, her hips rocking up into his movements as she comes, her head thrown back into the sheets; dimly, as the shaking feeling subsides and she starts to come back into her limbs, Amy is aware of him pressing kiss after kiss to her hips, her belly-button, the freckle over one of her ribs. And then he’s crawling up the bed, his hands trailing up her hot, sweat-slick skin and tugging her shirt off over her head; she looks up at him – _still in his shirt, still fucking buttoned up to the chin –_ and finds she can’t say anything at all.

She thinks he’s going to make a joke, then; some quip about her _looking_ _pretty convinced_ or _have I convinced you yet, Amelia Pond,_ or _was that convincing enough for you?_

Instead, he cups her face in his hands, and dips his head down to give her a slow, sweet kiss.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, when she breaks the kiss to breathe in shakily, her chest still rising and falling quickly; Amy rolls her eyes, wriggling her hips up into his, but he just looks at her, eyes dark with intent. “My Amelia.”

“What?” Amy frowns, tries to lift her head to kiss him again. “Doctor –“

“You are…” he seems lost in thought for a moment, his eyes trailing over her face, her eyes, her hair. “Exquisite, Amelia.”

Amy finds she can’t quite roll her eyes at that; she tries to think of something to say in return, and the breath catches in her throat. He’s still _looking_ and _looking_ at her, and when Amy struggles up to sit up against the pillows he follows her up, watches as she un-clasps her bra and tosses it aside, watches with heavy eyes as she turns her attentions to his shirt-buttons. She’s quick where he was slow, her fingers working hastily down his shirt until his chest is bare and he can elbow the shirt off while she makes quick work of the braces, the straining button and zipper of his trousers, and then he’s lying back down in bed, eyes fixed on her as she straddles him, pushing both layers down his thighs. She thinks for a hazy moment about rolling his jeans all the way off his leg, but she’ll get to that in a moment, she has something far more pressing on her mind first –

He gasps when she wraps her hand around him, his eyes falling shut and his hips rocking upwards helplessly.  Amy bites her lip, watches his face carefully as she moves her hand up and down, slowly at first and then faster, and then he’s –

Then he’s rolling them back over, pushing his jeans and boxers all the way off in one fluid motion, and Amy shakes her head in futile, half-hearted protest. “No, I – “ she whines, reaching for him with needy hands. “Wanna make you feel good –“

“You, Amy,” he says, ragged breaths making the words sound rough, unbalanced. “You.”

He comes back to settle himself between her thighs, and Amy decides that this is one argument she doesn’t really care about winning; she wraps her hands around the back of his neck, her fingers carding through his hair, and then he’s lining himself up and she can _feel_ him, feels him enter her with reverent, delicious slowness, feels his hips settle against hers.

For a few seconds, he stays entirely still, letting her adjust – she can tell he’s watching her, scanning her face carefully for any sign of – what, of recognition? Of _remembering - ?_

Or maybe he’s just waiting for her to sigh, and rock her hips upwards into his.

And then they’re finding a slow, clumsy rhythm, his head ducking down to press kiss after kiss to her face, her mouth, her neck, her hands tugging at his hair, their hips rolling together in an unsteady kind of familiarity.

She pulls his head towards her, meeting his mouth with hers in a messy, uncoordinated kiss that doesn’t quite work in time with the relentless thrusting, rocking motion of their hips – his nose bumps against her cheek, her teeth slide over his lips – but it still tastes infinitely sweet against Amy’s lips, still feels infinitely gentle in a way that makes her feel very _warm_ while the rest of her body seems consumed by heat.

And all the while he’s thrusting into her, his hands moving from her hips to her breasts to her waist again, until one hand finds hers again and their fingers wind tight; and the other finds its way between them, finds her clit and gives her the slightest, gentlest push, until Amy can feel it building in the pit of her stomach and the arches of her feet and the very ends of her fingertips, and she’s too _easy,_ it’s too much too soon after the first, she isn’t going to last much longer if he keeps on - _doing –_ that –

He’s whispering against her ear, “Amy, Amy, Amy,” his fingers stroking in soft, teasing circles to draw shouts and cries from her lips, his hips rolling down into hers now in quick, rough movements, faster and faster, and surely, _surely_ her imagination isn’t this good, _surely_ she has to be getting this from somewhere real except he’d never, they’d never – except they are –

He comes undone with a shout, his face pressed into her hair, and Amy feels herself release, feels the climax roll over her, leaving her shaking, breathless, under him.

***

“Amy?”

Amy rolls over, sleep tugging at her senses, and sees the Doctor propped up on one elbow, his eyes impossibly tender. “Yeah?”

“How are you feeling now?”

She cocks her head to one side, pretends to think. “Good,” she says, grinning when he smiles at her. “Tired. Good. Thank you.”

“Any…better?” he asks, and Amy feels her mouth twist unhappily.

“Do you mean, is this still a dream?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, Amy…” he sighs, and Amy thinks for a lurching moment that she’s disappointed him, that her subconscious is choosing this moment to turn her Doctor into someone cold and careless, someone who thinks she _needs the crazy fucked out of her –_

And then he reaches for her, pulling her against his chest and winding his fingers through her chair. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, when she tenses. “Amelia, I swear to you I’m doing everything I can.”

“Sounds just like something I'd wish you’d say,” Amy says quietly, keeping her eyes trained on her bedroom wall. “From New York.”

He doesn’t have an answer to that; she doesn’t expect him to.

Instead, he holds her close, and presses a soft kiss to the top of her hair, and pulls the blanket over both of them. Amy stares at the wall for a long time, waiting for him to say something, or ask her another question, or get up and leave and go fix the console or something. Instead, she’s aware only of the slightest sounds of the sheets rustling as he shifts slightly next to her, his arm warm and steady around her waist and only lifting away every now and then when he runs his fingers down her hair, soothes a damp curl away from her face.

She thinks about asking him to tell her a story; she thinks about asking him if he thinks she’ll dream about him again; she thinks about saying something, _anything,_ in case she doesn’t get another chance. And then she doesn’t think about anything at all, and his hand is tracing something circular and intricate against her shoulder-blade, and Amy’s warm, she’s so warm and safe, and she’s so tired.

Amy lets sleep take her, and at the very edge of consciousness she reaches a hazy realisation that she isn’t so sure, now, which world she’s going to see when she wakes up; and she isn’t sure which she’s hoping for when she unconsciousness finally takes hold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....Well. I did say this chapter was self-indulgent.
> 
> Chapter 3, with at least 37% less porn and 44% more DRAMA, is coming on Sunday night!
> 
> Say hi in the comments or on [tumblr](http://ameliajessicapond.tumblr.com/) where I am usually shrieking about Amy Pond at all hours of the night.
> 
> <3


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Amy fills her time with work and shopping and walks in the park; finds herself drifting off over her coffee, thoughts lost somewhere on the TARDIS; tries and fails to settle on any one task for more than a half hour._
> 
> _By the evening of the third day, she’s so frustrated, so keyed-up, that she can’t sleep, tossing and turning for hours while Rory snores faintly next to her. What if she just….can’t sleep? What then?_
> 
> _Or, a tiny, unbidden voice whispers. Or what if you fall asleep and nothing happens._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO. THANK YOU FOR ALL THE LOVELY COMMENTS ON CHAPTER TWO.
> 
> i apologise in advance for any formatting issues, i am borrowing a friend's laptop at the tail end of an impromptu sunday night drinks evening. everything was ready to go i just thought i would get home in time to format but NOPE

 

**Chapter Three**

The next three days pass agonisingly slowly.

Amy fills her time with work and shopping and walks in the park; finds herself drifting off over her coffee, thoughts lost somewhere on the TARDIS; tries and fails to settle on any one task for more than a half hour.

By the evening of the third day, she’s so frustrated, so keyed-up, that she can’t sleep, tossing and turning for hours while Rory snores faintly next to her.  What if she just…. _can’t_ sleep? What then?

_Or,_ a tiny, unbidden voice whispers. _Or what if you fall asleep and nothing happens._

She screws her eyes shut, frustrated. But the thoughts come quick and fast, leaving her winded; what if she’s wrong? What if there’s no _schedule_ for her to follow? What if it doesn’t matter at all how much time passed between the first and second dreams? What if this is it, what if two dreams is all she gets?

What if she never sees him again?

Long before the sun starts to creep over the New York skyline, Amy’s eyes feel prickly and raw with unshed tears. She forces herself out of bed, and is on her second coffee by the time Rory gets up.

He yawns, waving at her as he pauses in the kitchen doorway to run a hair through his damp hair. “Morning. You’re up early.”

Amy smiles tightly. “I’m always up.”

“Yeah,” Rory nods, frowning slightly. “But I heard you get up, it was like five.”

“Did I wake you?” when he shrugs, Amy bites her lip. “Sorry.”

“No, hey…” he comes over to her, strokes her hair gently. “It’s okay. What’s wrong?”

Amy shakes her head numbly. “Just couldn’t get to sleep. At all,” she adds, for effect, and is rewarded with a shoulder rub and a concerned hum. “Figured I might as well get up at some point.”

“Poor thing,” Rory says, going over to pour himself a coffee. “Do you have much to do today, can you nap later on?”

_Nap._ Amy almost laughs, because she’s never been able to just _nap,_ and it’s not like this is her first sleepless night ever; but she just shrugs. “Maybe.”

***

She doesn’t nap.

She forces herself through the day, one step after the other, even though her head feels too heavy for her neck and her skin feels too loose for her limbs. She thinks briefly about leaving the apartment to go get a coffee and a pastry from a tiny shop three blocks down, but eventually the thought of getting out of her robe and into real clothes proves too much of a hurdle.

When the afternoon sun starts slanting through their living room window with brutal intensity, Amy draws the blinds and lies back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling and waiting for unconsciousness to take her away from the pounding, insistent headache.

Sleep doesn’t come; instead, Rory unlocks the door at 8.30, and she sits up, face scratchy from the couch, eyes burning with fatigue, and calls, “Hey.”

“Hey, love,” he says, coming into the dark living room and squinting down at her. “I brought food, did you manage to sleep at all?”

Amy shakes her head, then shrugs; she doesn’t really know if the last few hours of mind-numbing, immobile _inertia_ classify as sleep. “I rested, a bit.”

“Good,” Rory smiles, heading into the kitchen and starting to unpack the steaming cartons of rice and shredded beef. “How does a glass of wine sound, then?”

“Wine,” Amy says blankly, swinging her legs out onto the floor and forcing herself up. “Yeah. Good.”

Dinner is a mostly-silent affair; Rory tries a few times to draw her into a conversation, but Amy sticks to monosyllabic answers, pushing her food around her plate and forcing a handful of bites down in the time it takes him to finish the rest of the take-out. She sips at the wine, hoping for some comforting warmth to hit her belly, but it just tastes bitter.

“Right,” Rory says, after such a long pause that Amy realises with a jolt that he’s been waiting for her to answer his question. “Bed, you.”

“Bed,” she repeats, nodding vaguely. “Yeah. Okay.”

She stumbles to the bedroom, collapses onto the mattress and pulls the covers up to her chin. She can hear Rory washing up, then the familiar rhythm of his walk to the bathroom; she listens to him brush his teeth, listens to his absent-minded whistle he gets changed, and then hears him come into the bedroom with almost exaggerated care.

“You don’t have to tiptoe,” she mumbles, face pressed into her pillow. “Still awake.”

Rory chuckles, getting into bed and pressing a kiss to her half-covered cheek. “Sweet dreams.”

Amy wrenches her eyes open, stares into space. _Fuck._

But he’s already rolled over, settling himself into his pillow with a grunt and a slow, weary exhale, and if Amy was hoping for him to distract her in some way then she’s sorely disappointed. Sleep comes, inevitably, but it comes too slowly and with too much guilt churning through Amy’s veins for it to be an easy relief.

Her dreams are confused and angry that night, but that’s all they are, _dreams,_ fragments with too much feeling and too little sense. Amy spends half the night wandering through an empty graveyard, storm clouds gathering overhead and menacing, stalking shadows darting around her just in the corner of her eye, closing in every time she turns her back.

“Amy,” Rory whispers, shaking her gently. “Amy, I’m off now.”

She surfaces from the dream with a gasp, looking around wildly until her bedroom swims into shape around her. “Rory?” Her tongue feels numb in her mouth.

“I’ve got work, but…” he’s frowning down at her, smooths damp hair away from her face. “You were tossing around a lot. Nightmare?”

Amy blinks, feeling disappointment wash over her like a rush to the head. “Yeah.”

He hums, concerned. “Want to get up? Take your mind off it? I’ve got to run, but there’s toast…”

Amy shakes her head, gestures weakly at the covers and feels instant relief when he pulls them up over her shaking chest. “Too tired.”

“Try and sleep some more,” Rory says, stooping to kiss her lightly. “And call the hospital if you need me, okay?”

“Okay,” Amy says, rolling onto her side and curling her arms in on herself. “Okay.”

***

When she does wake up on the TARDIS, four endless days later, Amy tries very hard to ignore the pure bolt of relief that runs through her as soon as she recognises her surroundings. It’s only been a week, she’s waited much longer for him than that, but it’s been a _whole week._

This time, Amy gets dressed before she makes her way down to the console room, determined to make this day feel _normal_ ; the hyperrealism of the first two dreams was enough to make her feel unsteady, but this time, she’s going to see just how real she can make it.

So when the Doctor looks up and smiles and calls, “Morning, Pond!” she doesn’t stop dead, she doesn’t rush over to hug him, she just pulls a face and wanders off to the kitchen.

_Be real,_ she thinks, waiting for the coffee to brew. _Be real._

He comes and finds her a few minutes later, sliding into the seat opposite hers and launching into a mile-a-minute rant about something that had broken the previous day and nearly gotten them _killed_ but “It’s all sorted now, no more phasing in and out of view in front of a bunch of angry Romans, I promise.”

“You always say that,” Amy grins. “And the next time it breaks it’ll be all ‘whoops, sorry, thought I’d fixed that, run!’”

“Have to keep you on your toes,” he smirks, and Amy kicks him under the table.

“What are we doing today, then?”

He leans his chin on his hands, considering her for a moment. Amy feels her insides twist together the longer he looks at her, and takes a last sip of coffee to put something between them; when she slams the mug down on the table, the strange look has faded from his face, and she lets herself relax. “Still in the mood for an anti-gravity dinner dance?” he asks, and she beams at him.

“Always.”

He gives her a small smile, getting to his feet and taking her coffee mug over to the sink. Amy watches him, the familiar slope of his shoulders in the neon light, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to catch him on his way back to her, to push him up against the counters and press her lips to his.

He squeaks into the kiss a little, one hand flying to her waist to steady them both; Amy smiles against his mouth when she feels his other hand come up to her neck, his fingers running through and through her hair. She presses forward a little, tongue probing at his lips, and he sighs into her. Her hands are curled around his braces, her legs pressed between against his and his hips rocking up into hers. It’s sweet and intense and early-morning; his breath still tastes of mint toothpaste and there’s still a hint of coffee on her tongue.

When she breaks the kiss, running her hands down his chest and letting the braces snap against his shirt a little, he squeaks again, and gives her a dazed kind of smile. “What was that for?”

“I dunno.” Amy shrugs, turns away casually. “Does there have to be a reason?”

He opens his mouth as if to argue, and then just smiles and points two finger-guns at her before spinning on his heels to head back to the console room.

_Be real,_ Amy thinks, and follows him.

***                              

“Pond, come look at this.”

Amy turns away from the open doors to see the Doctor frowning at his scanner. “What?”

“I’m getting a funny reading off that meteor belt…”

“But it’s so _pretty_ ,” Amy pouts, and the Doctor clicks his tongue at her. “Okay, okay…” she sighs, giving the swirling colours and shapes outside the doors one last look and skipping up to the console. “What’s wrong?”

“This,” the Doctor says, and in one fluid motion he’s taken hold of her wrist and pressed her hand onto a small, warm panel that sends a short pulse of current into Amy’s palm.

“No – “ Amy pulls her hand away and takes three steps back before she’s really understood what’s happening; when her back hits the metal railings, cold and unforgiving, she feels the weight of what’s just happened drop into her stomach like lead. “No.”

“I wanted to be sure,” the Doctor mumbles, barely looking at her while he taps at the keyboard. “If there was something noticeable…”

“You scanned me,” Amy says numbly; it’s not a question, so he doesn’t answer. She folds her arms in on herself, feeling all at once small and insignificant in the echoing console room. “You scanned me without asking.”

“You’ve been having scans every day,” the Doctor says, still not looking at her. “Trying to work out what was causing the amnesia, and if it had stopped for good. Which it hasn’t.”

Amy’s mouth feels dry. “How did you know?”

_“Amelia,_ ” he says, somewhere between exasperated and hurt as he finally turns to look at her. “Do you really think I don’t know you at all?”

“You’re in my head.” Amy grits her teeth. “You’re not real, so that means you can say whatever you like.”

“I can trick you, can I?” her asks, his voice low, very calm and even. “Amy, if this is all your dream, how could I fool you into thinking I didn’t know what you were doing?”

“Stop trying to make sense!” Her voice comes out much louder than his, ringing around the space between them. He steps back a little, holds up both hands in front of him, and she doesn’t knows if he’s surrendering or trying to calm her down, and it just makes her angrier.  “I’m going to my room,” she says, once the silence has dragged on long enough for him to drop his hands.

“Amelia…” he reaches out, and she flinches away.

“Don’t touch me.”

***

“Everything seems fine.”

Amy doesn’t look up; she hears the Doctor come into the room, hears him stop by the dressing table and pick up something or other to play with.

“The scan, I mean,” he says, and Amy swallows back the bitterness rising in her throat. “Same exact readings as yesterday. Which you don’t remember, of course.”

When he sits down on the edge of the bed, the weight of him back the mattress sag slightly and tipping her towards him, Amy squeezes her eyes shut.

“So it’s nothing physical,” he says, almost brightly. “That’s a good start.”

“Just crazy Amy,” Amy mutters, rolling onto her other side and hearing him suck in a pained breath.

“Amelia, _no._ ”

She doesn’t say anything, and after a while she feels his hand creep onto her shoulder, feels his thumb soothing over the tense spot at the base of her neck.

“I just wanted today to be normal,” she says after a while, keeping her eyes firmly closed and her arms curled in on herself. “I wanted it to be another day, just…on the TARDIS.”

“It _is_ just another day,” he says quietly. “But yesterday you were worried. Yesterday you wanted to find a way to make it stop.”

Amy frowns, pressing her lips together. “Make it stop?”

“The amnesia spells,” he says, and then hesitates. “And…the dreams about New York. They’re getting stronger, you said you had a dream that felt like it lasted a few days.”

“There you go again,” Amy mutters. “Trying to make sense.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, after a short pause; Amy doesn’t say anything, and he keeps rubbing circles into her shoulder.

When he moves his hand away to push up and away from the bed, she feels the absence as keenly as if she’d suddenly woken up from the dream; a minute later, though, he’s crawled under the covers next to her, pressing his face into her hair and pulling her closer to him. “I’m here,” he whispers again, and Amy feels tears roll past her eyelids onto her cheeks. “Amelia, we’re going to work this out, I promise.”

She isn’t aware of falling asleep –

***

– only aware of waking up with the sounds of New York drifting in through the window, and aware of the frustrated tears that start to spill down her cheeks as soon as she realises where she is.

She didn’t even get a full day, let alone an adventure outside the TARDIS; just a half-morning spent arguing with the Doctor, straining against the fucked-up logic of her own invention. It isn’t _fair,_ and Amy thinks suddenly that she’s being punished for pushing at the rules too much, for arguing back instead of letting the dream Doctor distract her, comfort her, show her something incredible.

Punished, for denying herself the release that the dream could have been.

All day, there’s a tenseness in her shoulders and an itchiness in her hands, an unresolved tension that lingers over her bath and her dinner and her glass of wine, until they’re getting into bed and Rory’s putting aside his newspaper.

“Lights out?” he asks, glancing over to where she’s lying flat in bed, staring up at the ceiling.

“No,” Amy says, on impulse; Rory squints down at her, and she reaches up wordlessly, tugging him down onto her.

_Be real,_ she thinks, her mouth on his, her hands running up and down his back. _Be real._

***

The next time Amy dreams of the Doctor, four frustrating nights later, he does take her to the anti-gravity dinner dance. Amy soars and spins, her dress fanning out around her, and when the Doctor leads her in an upside-down waltz, her hair skimming the dancefloor, she laughs so hard she thinks she might throw up.

They drink cocktails through bendy straws, take turns throwing food into each others mouths, and every time the Doctor asks her if she’s _sure_ she doesn’t remember coming here a week ago Amy turns away to do a solitary lap of the dancefloor, dipping and weaving around the other dancers.

“Enough of that,” the Doctor says, the third time this happens; Amy can feel the heat in her cheeks, can feel her breath coming in short, angry puffs, and when he reaches out to clasp her hand in his she doesn’t smile. “I’m sorry, Amelia, I’ll stop, I promise.”

“You better,” Amy mutters, and throws a praline at him.

The moment passes.

They make their way back to the TARDIS eventually, staggering against each other and giggling with wrong-footed glee after hours of weightlessness. Amy leans her head against the familiar blue doors, and squeaks in protest when the Doctor turns the key in the lock, pushing her inside.

She staggers up through the entrance, and turns in a circle, watching with fascination the way her skirt billows out around her, the way her hands glide through the air.

“Where to now, then?” the Doctor asks, watching her with a small smile.

“I don’t care,” Amy laughs, spinning and skipping in a wide circle around the console. “That was brilliant, can we go again?”

“ _Again_?” he asks, raising his eyebrows; when Amy just nods, stubborn, he sighs. “Amelia…”

“You said,” Amy says, refusing to look at him; she turns in a deliberately slow circle, scared to see the concern in his eyes. “You said enough of that. I want to go again.”

There’s a brief pause, and then -

“Right you are, Pond,” the Doctor says, and he sets the coordinates for the seven days later.

***

By the last dance, Amy is fading, leaning against the Doctor and letting him lead her around in a slow, soothing rhythm that almost feels like a lullaby, her face pressed against his shoulder. The music draws to a flourishing close and the dancers break out into applause, Amy jerking back into consciousness and rubbing her cheek, scratchy from the tweed he refused to change out of.

“Still with us, Pond?” he asks, very casually; Amy scowls.

“Still me.”

His smile slips. “Sorry.”

“I want to go again,” she says, pressing her hands to her face and _willing_ herself not to yawn. “Can we go again?”

“If that’s what you want,” the Doctor says, reaching out to steady her by the elbow when she loses her balance. “But we can go back for a quick rest first.”

“I don’t want to rest,” Amy says stubbornly. _I don’t want to wake up._ “I want to dance.”

“We can do that,” he says, very gently. “Lean against me, okay?”

She leans against him all the way back to the TARDIS.

He opens the door, hand going to her waist to steady her, and then leads her inside When he sits her down in the chair, he presses a kiss to the top of her head; Amy reaches up and rests her hand to his cheek. He stills for a moment, his eyes very warm, as Amy rns her thumb over the familiar contours of his nose, his cheek, the edge of his mouth; he turns his head slightly, presses a kiss to her palm. Amy feels very warm.

“Still want to dance?”

“I…” Amy struggles, forcing herself back upright and blinking hazily. “Yes. _Yes,_ I’m not tired.”

“Whatever you say,” he grins, holding out both his hands for hers and then pulling her to her feet. “Any particular requests?”

“Particular…” It’s a struggle, somehow, to make sense of the words even though Amy _knows_ he isn’t babbling. “What?”

“Requests, Pond,” the Doctor says patiently, dropping her hands and dashing over to the console; she sees him twiddle two dials and suddenly the console room is filled with classical music, soft and lilting. Amy grins. “Or will this do?”

“This’ll do, I guess,” she says softly, when he comes back over to her and takes one of her hands in his. “For now.”

His hand at her waist, her fingers curling into the lapel of his jacket. Their legs stepping in a quick-slow rhythm around the console. The music filling her ears, her belly.

“Thanks,” she says quietly. “For today.”

“Any time, Pond.”

They dance.

***

Amy wakes up slowly, her limbs heavy and chest warm. She stretches, blinks in the sunlight. Dimly, she thinks she must have slept in. It’s Sunday, it must be, because Rory is still asleep next to her. She reaches out, suddenly needing the solidness of him, needing some _reality_ to hold on to -

“Amy! You're awake!”

_No._

“You’re still here,” she says blankly, and sees the dismay reach the Doctor’s eyes.

“You still can’t remember?”

“We went dancing,” she says faintly. “Yesterday. That was yesterday for you, too?”

_They’d spun around the console, her head heavy on his shoulder, until he had led her gently through the corridors back to her bedroom -_

“You only slept a few hours,” he says, reaching out with a gentle hand to stroke her hair. “Are you feeling alright?”

_His hand stroking over her neck and shoulders, his quiet voice keeping up a low stream of nonsense as she had struggled against sleep -_

Amy turns away to lie on her back, stares up at the ceiling. “I’m still dreaming.”

She hears him sigh, feels him settle back into the bed and feels his chin resting against her shoulder, his forehead pressed into her hair. “Oh, Amy...”

“I’ll wake up tomorrow, I guess,” she says dully, feeling a dead weight settle in her stomach like lead when he freezes, grows tense against her shoulder.

“Maybe,” the Doctor says after a while, his face still hidden in the crook of her neck. “Maybe.”

_Hopefully,_ she hears him not say, and presses her lips together. She’ll wake up tomorrow. This will end, like her dreams always end, and she’ll wake up in New York where she belongs.

Still -

Still, she closes her eyes, breathes in and out very slowly; lets herself take in the shape of the Doctor pressed against her, the feeling of artificial sunlight streaming through artificial windows into her bedroom on the TARDIS.

_Be real._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOOH.
> 
> say hi on tumblr (ameliajessicapond) or twitter (@amesjpond)! im not in a fit state to hyperlink things right now. see you on sunday for ch.4!


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _They’re sitting under a sprawling tree, pink-and-gold leaves fluttering in the breeze. Amy’s leaning back, her head pillowed on his chest, watching the sunlight catch and spiral through the canopy. He’s telling her a story, something long and meandering about days like this on Gallifrey, sneaking out of the Academy to run barefoot up a hill and then launch himself back down, rolling over and over in the soft red grass._
> 
>  
> 
> _It’s four days since Amy last woke up in New York, and every minute feels like borrowed time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the love on chapter 3! And thank you to Regina and Christine for beta-reading/cheerleading <3

**Chapter Four**

Somewhere between the sixth and seventh dream, time begins to blur.

Amy gets through her days. She still has breakfast with Rory every morning, she still writes her stories and edits her articles when she remembers to, she still heads uptown to meet her editor once a week and goes for long walks in the park to catch the late-afternoon sunshine. She cleans, she cooks. She fills her time.

And every night when her head hits the pillow, she closes her eyes with an impatience burning in her stomach, waiting for sleep to come and carry her away. 

Some nights, she doesn’t dream at all; some nights, she wakes up with only confused, half-remembered snatches of what might have been a dream; but some nights ( _ most  _ nights, now, she thinks), Amy wakes up in her bedroom in the TARDIS.

And every time she does, the Doctor is lying next to her, or busy tinkering with the console, or already making coffee; and he’ll look up and meet her eyes and register the lack of recognition, and his expression will soften and he’ll take her hands in his and say, “Dreaming?”

“Again,” Amy will say, letting him pull her against his chest and breathing slowly in and out. “Yeah.”

They have it down to a routine, now, those first hazy, confused minutes where Amy still feels half-asleep. He tells her about any adventures they’ve had which she can’t remember; she fills him in about however many days she spent in New York.

“The first human settlement on Mars.” the Doctor will say, watching her carefully. “We were there when the first child was born on-base.”

“Sounds nice,” she’ll say. “Wish I could remember.“

They move on.

***

He doesn’t test Amy as much as he did the first few times she dreamed of the TARDIS; he doesn’t try to convince her, he doesn’t try to scan her for abnormalities, and he doesn’t try to catch her out with memories that always refused to come back no matter how hard he tried.

When he does push - 

When he takes her to a small cottage by the Welsh coast, grey slate and peeling blue window-frames - 

Amy wanders through the cottage in a daze, letting her fingers skin over the dust collecting on the mantelpiece, the dried-up sunflowers in a chipped red vase on the window sill.

“It’s lovely,” she says, turning to smile at the Doctor. “But….sort of sad.”

“Sad?” He’s got both hands shoved into his pockets, watching her expectantly. “Why sad?”

“I don’t know, it’s just…” Amy gestures around the room. “I dunno.”

“Let’s look in here,” the Doctor says gently, pushing open the door to a room overlooking the cliffs. There are three big windows, almost as tall as the room itself, and an easel set up facing the sea.

And all around the room, hanging on the wall or propped up against the table to dry - 

“Paintings,” Amy says softly, letting her eyes adjust to the light and  taking them in. 

“Not just any paintings,” the Doctor says, taking her hand and pulling her into the room. “ _ Look,  _ Amelia.”

Amy looks. She sees. Alien vistas with three moons over an auburn sky; she sees stone statues in a shadowy graveyard; she sees a Dalek fleet, a Silurian city, blank-faced robots with menacing hands; a girl alone, too-big coat pulled tight against buffeting winds; a young woman with golden light bursting from her hands; a mother with her face obscured, her baby cradled safe to her chest.

“It’s…” she swallows, her throat dry. “What is this?”

“We came here,” the Doctor says quietly, squeezing her hand tight in his. “After Manhattan.”

Amy blinks back tears. She pulls her hand out of the Doctor’s, moves forward into the room as if in a daze. She can recognise more and more of the paintings, now. Hotel corridors, hospital wards, blue front doors. 

A couple, their faces indistinct blurs: dancing in their wedding clothes; the man pours coffee while the woman reads a letter; he sleeps while she sits awake, face turned to the open window.

She stumbles, has to lean her hand against the easel to steady herself; the Doctor starts to follow her into the room and she halts his movement with a short, sharp shake of the head. 

“Why did we come here?” Her tongue feels too heavy in her mouth.

“Because…” the Doctor shrugs, scuffs his boots in the dust on the floorboards. “You said you needed some time, away from - everything.”

Amy shakes her head. “No,” she says slowly, feeling anger start to burn through the numbness in her veins. “Today. Why did you bring me today.”

“Oh!” It’s almost comical, how quickly he brightens. “Well, I thought it might help jog your memory.” He looks at her closely, a faint crease appearing above his nose. “Has it?”

“How can it?” Amy clenches her teeth together. “These are just more pictures of stuff I’ve been dreaming about.”

“Amelia - “

She pushes past him, feet kicking against the wooden floorboards in her hurry to get outside - wrenches open the kitchen door and runs out into the garden, gulping in deep breaths of fresh, sea-salt air. Anger courses through her, hot and untempered, and she can feel her cheeks burning against the cool wind as she leans against the garden fence, looks back down the path and towards the waiting TARDIS.

“Amy?” She doesn’t turn around, just listens to the hesitant crunch of his boots against the pebbled path. “Amy, I’m sorry.”

Amy hugs her arms to her chest, presses her lips tightly together. She can see him out of the corner of her eye; he’s standing a little way away, head ducked against the wind, anxiety and concern radiating off his posture in equal measures. “You said you wouldn’t push me,” she says quietly. “You said we were just going on a trip.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where we were going,” he says softly, and Amy makes another mental tally in the  _ this is definitely a dream  _ column, because the real Doctor would never bend that easily, would never offer up an apology just like that. “But I’m only trying to help.”

Amy closes her eyes, and makes another mark in the  _ this could be real  _ column; his apologies never did come without qualifications.

***

They don’t talk much on the way back to the TARDIS, and as soon as he’s unlocked the door Amy heads straight for the showers.

When she emerges, pink-skinned and warm, wrapped in a huge fluffy towel, he’s sitting on the edge of her bed, hands folded together expectantly. 

Amy scowls, all the tension she’d just massaged out of her muscles. coming straight back to her shoulders again, “What?”

“It’s like,” he says very quietly, his eyes focused on his hands. “It’s like I'm losing you, Pond.”

Amy clenches her jaw. So they’re doing this. 

“How can you be losing me,” she says flatly. Sits down at her dressing table and starts brushing through her damp hair. “You’re in my dreams.”

“These days where you can’t remember a single thing that’s happened in the last three years,” the Doctor says, while Amy resolutely keeps her back to him; she can see him in the mirror, can see him chewing his lip while he waits for her to interrupt him. “They’re happening more and more.”

Amy doesn’t answer, dropping her towel onto the bedroom floor and pulling a pair of knickers out of her chest of drawers. The air is cool against her skin, and she can feel his eyes on her, but there’s no anticipation in her movements, just a dull feeling of having let him down somehow, settled underneath her bristling anger. 

“So?” she asks finally, pulling them on and picking up her discarded clothes from the floor. The Doctor watches her silently, waits until she’s pulling on her sweater before speaking again.

“So you’ll wake up tomorrow with another life in your head,” he says, as Amy sits down at the edge of her bed and presses her hands against her knees. “More dreams about New York. And  _ we don’t know why _ , but it’s happening. It’s happening more and more, in fact - “

“No, I’m having these  _ dreams  _ more and more,” Amy cuts in, her cheeks burning; she’s raised her voice, she can see him flinch slightly, but she doesn’t care, he’s  _ ruining it again  _ and she doesn’t care - 

“It’s like you’re being pulled away,” he says, his voice so quiet she has to strain to hear him even though they’re all but touching. “Like your dreams are pulling you away from me.”

Amy feels the words hit her before she’s parsed their meaning, feels herself exhale shakily and feels her eyes fill with tears. “That’s…” she swallows, her throat thick. “That’s what it feels like.”

He looks back at her with wet eyes, and when he lifts his hand to stroke her cheek Amy doesn’t move away. “It feels like I’m being pulled away,” she says slowly, letting her face rest against the familiar shape of his palm. “Like I’m being pulled  _ here _ . To you.”

***

They’re sitting under a sprawling tree, pink-and-gold leaves fluttering in the breeze. Amy’s leaning back, her head pillowed on his chest, watching the sunlight catch and spiral through the canopy. He’s telling her a story, something long and meandering about days like this on Gallifrey, sneaking out of the Academy to run barefoot up a hill and then launch himself back down, rolling over and over in the soft red grass.

It’s four days since Amy last woke up in New York, and every minute feels like borrowed time.

She’s comfortably full from their picnic lunch, and very warm in the sun; the rise-and-fall of his voice and the double-beat of his hearts in her ear soothe her into a relaxed, contented daze.

“Amy?” he asks; she feels his fingers still in her hair. “Still with us?”

“Still here,” Amy yawns, grinning when she feels him start to brush through her hair again. “Carry on.”

That gets her a quiet laugh, and she feels him settle himself slightly back in the grass. “Did I tell you about our first trip off Gallifrey? We flew right up to the edge of a star going supernova. Singed the doors on my professor’s TARDIS, we never heard the end of it. Cleaning out the stables for a month…”

Amy blinks, and he’s silent, his hands still stroking her hair and his hearts beating evenly in his chest. She thinks she might have dozed off. “Doctor?”

“Mmh?” He sounds relaxed, so relaxed and at ease it almost hurts Amy to hear him.

“I think I missed the end of the story.”

She hears the Doctor laugh quietly, and smiles. “That’s alright,” he murmurs. "Wasn’t that exciting, once I got to the stable cleaning. Did you sleep?”

“Only a  _ bit _ ,” she says, closing her eyes and shuffling closer to the Doctor’s side. “Aren’t you tired?”

“Only a bit.” 

Amy grins, pressing her face into his shirt. 

“We can go back to the TARDIS if you like. It’s getting late.”

“No,” Amy says quietly, and then, opening her eyes to stare out at the darkening sky, “Every time I go to sleep i think I’m going to wake up in New York.”

His fingers slow to a halt, his heartbeats treacherous against her ear. “Every time you go to sleep I think you’re going to wake up from another dream about New York,” he says, and Amy presses her lips together. “Every time you wake up I think you’re going to remember me again.”

“That’s what you say every time,” Amy says mulishly. The evening air is starting to feel cold against her hands. 

“That’s what  _ you  _ say every time.”

She closes her eyes, frustrated. 

***

“What if I just….never go to sleep again?” Amy asks at the end of another day, following the Doctor in through the TARDIS doors. It’s her first day back after another interminable week of New York, and she’s flushed from a sprint through an underground maze, adrenaline coursing through her and making everything seem brighter, clearer.

He turns on the spot, leaning against the railing with one hand. Stares at her for a long time. “You’d want that?”

“What?”

“You'd want to stay?”

Amy pushes him back against the railing, pressing her lips to his and running her hands insistently down his sides until he's kissing her back, the air thick with quickly-rising heat.

“Do you really still need to ask?” she murmurs against his cheek, and he stills, hands trembling a little against her waist.

“Sometimes it's like you still think you should have gone after him,” he says.

_ Rory.  _

Amy reels back, guilt clouding the mood so quickly and so entirely that she feels almost cheated. “I did go after him,” she says flatly, turning away from the Doctor and pushing past him to head towards the stairs. “Thanks for the reminder.”

“No -” he follows her quickly, boots heavy against the metal floors. “Amy.  _ Amelia -  _ “

He catches up to her at the top of the stairs, hands going to her wrists and pulling her around to face him. 

“What?” Amy asks, eyes fixed stubbornly on the wall behind his right ear.

He kisses her, lips molding themselves along the line of her mouth and tongue probing at her lips until she sighs into him, hands clutching at her wrists, her hips, her waist, pulling her forwards onto him, his back hitting the wall. Amy feels a moan vibrate through her chest, feels her pulse thudding through her ears; he breaks their kiss to press his lips to her cheek, then her ear, then the side of her neck, and all the while his hands are clutching at her waist he can’t let go, like their bodies are magnetised, like he’s being pulled inexorably into her.

He buries his face in the crook of her neck, and pauses there, lips pressed to her pulse point. Amy squirms with impatient need, the fight all but forgotten in the hazy air that seems to envelope them, growing hotter by the second; but then he stops, and pulls his head away to meet her eyes with a direct, open gaze.

“Amy,” he says, his voice raw, unguarded. “You...have  _ always _ been enough.”

Amy fights the urge to blink, to turn her head, to hide from the intensity of his eyes, fixed on her like that. “What do you mean?” she asks finally, the words coming out barely louder than a whisper.

“You think you’re letting me down somehow, by not remembering,” he says, and then Amy does reel back, her pulse roaring in her ears. “But you’re not, I promise you.  And even if - even if a part of you is always going to be in New York, or with Rory, or both, that’s… As long as you want to be here, I want you here.”

“That’s what you think this is?” Amy asks,forcing herself to find the eye contact again even as it makes her stomach flip and her heart thud too loudly in her chest. “You think I’m…. _ processing _ ?”

The Doctor shrugs. “I know a thing or two about keeping memories locked away,” he says, with a tiny, wry smile that all at once makes Amy want to hug him close to her chest. “They always find a way out in the end.”

“So me thinking I’m still in New York…” Amy frowns. This - the part where he tries to make sense of her dream world, where he tries to force some kind of order into the chaos - is usually the part she avoids, the part where she argues or distracts or runs away. 

But now - 

“As long as you want to be here,” he repeats softly. “As long as you want to share this...life. I’ll take what I can get, Pond, you know that.”

***

Later, after dinner, she asks again. They're in the library, curled together in a squashy old sofa, her head resting against his chest. ”What if I never go to sleep again?”

His fingers still in her hair. “We could try keeping you awake, I suppose.* 

Amy turns to look up at him. “Yeah?”

“Forcing yourself to stay in one place,” he says softly. “When you’ve been switching between the two. It’s an idea.”

“I want to stay,” Amy says, sitting up and kissing the Doctor gently, smiling against his lips until he smiles back. “I want to stay, okay?” 

He draws back, looks at her for a long moment.  Amy thinks vaguely that she’s never really seen him _speechless,_ that he doesn’t ever let her see that much - and she makes one more mark in the _this is the dream_ column, then.

“Okay,” he says finally, with such an overwhelmed look in his eyes that it leaves her reeling. “Okay.”

Amy swallows thickly, looks away.. “Coffee,” she tells him, pushing herself up off the sofa. “I’m going to need a lot of coffee.”

He just smiles at her, warm and familiar, and she’s the biggest asshole in the world. “Right you are, Pond.”

***

Time works in a strange way on the TARDIS; Amy’s never quite sure what time it is, and she doesn’t need to, there are no jobs to get up for or meetings to plan around. They could land on any planet, in any century, at any time of day, so the internal rhythms of life on the TARDIS become more instinctive than anything else. Amy gets up whenever she wakes up, eats meals when she’s hungry, goes to sleep when she’s tired. 

Usually.

Except now she can’t, or won’t, and it feels like it’s three in the morning and she’s leaning against the Doctor’s shoulder, watching two suns rise over a desolate horizon. He told her the name of the planet they’re visiting, but she’s already forgotten; it’s wild, and uninhabited, and wonderful. Tall, leave-less tree are scattered across a heath-like landscape; white-capped mountains reflect the twin sunrise, reds and golds spilling across the snow.

“Pond,” the Doctor says; Amy blinks, feeling her eyes struggle to open again. “Earth to Pond, come in, Pond.”

“I’m awake,” she mumbled. “I’m awake.”

“You know,” he says, turning to face her and dislodging her head from his shoulder. “You  _ can  _ sleep, if you like.”

“No.” Amy feels her head begin to droop; forces it back upright to look at him. “No. I want coffee.”

“Amelia…” There’s a crease etched into his forehead, and an unhappy twist to his mouth. Amy glares back at him. “Alright. More coffee. How does Venice sound?”

“As long as…” Amy yawns, getting up and dragging her feet after him back to the TARDIS. “No sexy fish.”

“No sexy fish,” he laughs, taking her hand in his. “Just coffee on Piazza San Marco, I promise.”

***

They’re sitting outside a café minutes later, baking in the mid-afternoon sun. St Mark’s Square is packed with tour groups and families and buskers, and what feels like about a hundred pigeons; Amy’s head is starting to feel fuzzy with overstimulation. She sips at her espresso and tries to enjoy the sunshine.

The Doctor sits across from her, hands steepled under his chin. The same worry-line is still creasing his forehead, and Amy feels a sudden, childish urge to throw her glass of water in his face.

He must see something of that thought in her eyes, because he asks, “What is it?” before she’s even opened her mouth to speak.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she says, putting her drained espresso cup and craning her head for a waiter.

He frowns at her. “Like what?

“Like I’m going to break.” Amy presses her lips together. “Like I’m going to snap out of it.”

“Snap out of…” he trails off, his eyes going wide. “Amelia, I told you, there’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Amnesia, hallucinations, paranoia,” Amy counts with her fingers, refusing to look up from her hands. “Delusion. Psychosis. Call it what you want.”

“I don’t want to call it any of those things,” he says, and Amy has to fight her lips from trembling.

“What would you call it, then?“

“I don’t know,” he says quietly. “And I don’t think it does us any good to keep talking about it.”

“Just ignore it until I go away, right?” Amy laughs humourlessly. “Or  _ come back, _ I guess.”

“You’re right here,” the Doctor says, taking her hand and pulling it towards him. “ _ Here,  _ Amelia.” He presses her hand to his cheek, and Amy feels a tremor run down her spine. 

She wants to be.  _ God _ , she wants to be.

***

He takes her to see a jousting tournament in 1531, because the entertainment might be brutal enough to stop her from dozing off; takes her on a long walk on the Bolivian highlands, because the thin air might keep her going longer; takes her to the pleasure beaches of New New Earth, where she buys herself a full day's dose of _A_ _wake_ and experiences the beaches and bars in vivid, lurid colour.  Eventually, when the effects wear off and Amy just starts to feel _exhausted,_ her mouth dry and her stomach rolling, he takes her to the opening of the first off-earth theme park, because (he says) it’s hard to feel sleepy on a rollercoaster.

Amy stumbles after him, tripping against curbs and lampposts and rubbish bins. Crowds jostle past her, fireworks soar overhead, there are a hundred different sights and sounds, and it’s too much, it’s too much to take in. She keeps her eyes fixed on the Doctor’s tweed jacket, tries to focus on the feeling of his hand in hers.

She’s lost track of the hours she’s been awake now, and if she was hoping for this world to start feeling  _ more real _ the longer she spent here then she’s starting to realise now just how foolish that idea was. Reality feels stretched thin around her, like if she stops concentrating for even a moment then everything will blur and bend out of shape; the Doctor’s hand in hers, the familiar slope of his shoulder, that’s about all she can be sure is real right now.

Maybe that’s enough. 

Amy hopes it’s enough.

“Amy?”

Amy blinks, suddenly aware that they’ve stopped walking; the crowds part and jostle around them, and she feels like she’s being buffeted by some great, unseeable current.

She looks up at the Doctor’s face with great difficulty. He’s squinting at her suspiciously, and Amy thinks hazily it might have something to do with the way the world is swaying around them.

“What’s wrong?” she asks thickly, the words coming out like treacle. “The floor’s moving, why’s it doing that, do we need to help people or stop it, or…” she trails off, unsure of what else to suggest.

“The floor’s fine, Amelia,” the Doctor says carefully, reaching out to clasp her free hand in his and pulling her closer towards him. The floor stops swaying. “You’re exhausted.”

“Fine,” she says automatically. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” he says quietly, walking backwards and pulling her with him until they’ve reached a wooden bench. “Then you won’t mind sitting down for a bit?”

Amy frowns. He’s going to make her go to sleep, she just knows it. She thinks of arguing, of refusing to sit down even for a second, but her legs feel like jelly and her head is heavy on her neck, and he’s pulling her down with him, letting her lean against him, and it’s easy, it’s so easy to rest her head against the tweet and let the bench take her weight off her feet.

“Five minutes,” she says, her tongue feeling numb in her mouth. “I’ll sit for five minutes, and you have to pinch me if I close my eyes.”

“Alright,” the Doctor hums, and she feels him shift to press a kiss to the top of her hair. “Whatever you need, Pond.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update (hopefully! This week is busy but I will try my best!) coming Sunday night!
> 
> Say hi on twitter (@amesjpond) or on [tumblr](http://ameliajessicapond.tumblr.com/) where I am usually screaming about Amy Pond at all hours of the night. <3


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